New City Hall Square and Civic Esplanade Design update

Tuesday, August 27, 2019 1:35 pm

Imagine a beautiful, tree-lined pedestrian esplanade connecting Windsor City Hall to the river. Or, a new ice rink directly adjacent to our municipal administration building, like they have in Toronto or Kingston. In the winter, the rink would be open for skating, but in the summer, it could transform into a water feature where families could bring their children to splash around and cool off.

This scenario is only one of a number of possibilities we are open to considering for the New City Hall Square Plaza and Civic Esplanade Project. Now that City Council on Monday approved forming a steering committee made up of five councillors and myself to oversee the project, I am looking forward to getting your ideas and suggestions for this important civic space soon. Although we are still in the early stages of planning—the committee needs to set up a project charter and outline the full scope of the design elements, which will have to be approved by council—I am hoping we can open public consultations soon to get your input. So, please start giving some thought to what this space means to you and our city and how you would envision the civic plaza being utilized.

This project is an opportunity for us to fulfill a decades-long dream of having a cohesive pedestrian and visual link from City Hall right to the waterfront, and it will allow us to design a space that is both inviting to the public and representative of our city—a place of pride, a place where people want to be.